Esteemed Forum Participants & Lurkers:I run Linux Mint exclusively diskless in my 2 systems (desktop - HP dx2400 Core2 Duo 8GB and IBM ThinkPad 1861-2BU Pentium M740 1.28GB). I started with Mint 8 four years ago and have followed the Mint LiveCD releases since then, with a lot of frustration. I use Mint 8 and 10 mostly, because every other version has problems that either make the OS unuseable on my hardware, or if it boots properly, has 'anomalies' (bugs?) that drive me crazy. I'm creating a spreadsheet that documents my experiences.

Is it possible to get pre-release alpha/beta versions of the next LiveCD release for testing and comment? Mint 15 is due in a little over 2 months, and I sure would like to have some input on how it will run "in the wild". I am a relative novice with Linux and have never (yet) compiled an ap or a kernel or built a LiveCD, so I would hope I could obtain an iso image.

Thanks for any and all comments, suggestions, and assistance.Blessings in abundance, all the best, & ENJOY!Art in Carlisle, PA USA

BOAT - a hole in the water that you pour money intoLINUX - a hole in your life that you pour TIME into

Mint 15 has not yet fully begun testing. The testing .iso's are not made available to the general population. You might email Clem to see what would be necessary to become a member of the testing team.

Linux Mint 15 is planned for release end of May (http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2299), so that is 3 months away yet. Linux Mint has a public release candidate, which you can test usually about 2 weeks before the final release is made. There are no alpha or beta releases. The testing team gets the release candidate ahead of public availability, which they test against a set of test-cases. If all test-cases are passed, the release candidate is made available publicly.

It doesn't sound like an alpha or beta release (if there were any) would help you in any way. Hardware drivers are in the kernel, and not maintained by Linux Mint. If your specific hardware doesn't work properly with Linux Mint, that is most likely a problem with drivers for your hardware in the kernel. Linux Mint 15 will use the Ubuntu 13.04 kernel, so what you can do is test Ubuntu 13.04 (I believe you can already download early builds for that) and see if its kernel works properly with your hardware.

All that said, have you tried getting help with the specific hardware problems you are facing?